Story of the Week

YouTube, ASCAP to Share Data in First-Ever Voluntary Deal
In what is the performance rights group’s first-ever fully-negotiated, voluntary licensing deal with the decade-old video hub not prompted by a rate-court proceeding, ASCAP will combine its database of 10.5 million musical works with YouTube’s data exchange, a move that ASCAP’s CEO Elizabeth Matthews says will result in bigger payouts.

Other Music News Highlights

Canada’s SOCAN Collected Record-Setting $249M In Royalties For 2016. The PRO said it recorded “new highs on almost every front,” with nearly 4,500 businesses that use music became “licensed to play” with SOCAN and 6,500 additional songwriters, composers and music publishers signed up for membership.

Merlin Deals Paying Out The Equivalent Of Nearly $1M A Day To Independent Labels. Before the end of March, Merlin’s admin fee for these members was 2% of total revenues – it proudly reduced this to 1.5% in April – suggesting its total collections in the 2016/2017 period stood at around $360M.

Believe Digital Actively Seeks Sale, Major Players Show Interest. Global independent distributor, label services provider, and TuneCore owner Believe Digital is for sale, sources tell Hypebot, and a two to three week deadline has been set for initial bids.

Sony/ATV’s Martin Bandier Calls on Spotify, Apple Music, And YouTube To Credit Songwriters. While he acknowledged that songwriters and publishers are beginning to benefit from the uptick in revenues with the rise of streaming, he was quick to note that “songwriters and music publishers, while we’re headed in the right direction, the fruits of our labor are not being equitably rewarded and we are not benefiting from the streaming revolution as meaningfully as we should.”

Story of the Week

Federal judge rules against Dept. of Justice’s ‘100 Percent’ Licensing decision
In a surprise move, BMI’s rate court judge ruled on Friday that fractional licensing is allowed under the consent decree the performing-rights organization operates under, according to a statement from BMI.

According to Stanton’s ruling, “The consent decree neither bars fractional licensing nor requires full-work licensing,” which is the exact opposite of what the DOJ argued when it gave ASCAP and BMI one year to employ full-works licensing.

Since the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees are similar, some hope that the ASCAP rate court Judge Denise Cote will follow suit, should the matter come before her. Now the question becomes, will the Dept. of Justice turn to Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit? “The Department of Justice has received the Order and is reviewing it,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement.

…and finds that one-third of under-25’s now pay for a streaming service. South Korea, Sweden and Mexico are identified as the most popular (per population) markets for subscription services, with about four in every ten people paying for a music subscription. In the U.S. and U.K., the number was around two in every ten; in Japan around one in every ten.

Tidal posts $28M net loss in 2015, more than double the year before. It’s been a big year for Tidal, as the company has released exclusive albums from Beyonce, Kanye West and Rihanna…but the company has more than doubled its net losses while increasing its revenue only 30 percent.

Pandora launches Pandora Plus, an improved version of its $5 subscription service. “Whether a listener wants to take advantage of our enhanced ad-supported experience, our ground-breaking subscription radio service, or our fully interactive on-demand option coming later this year, we have a solution tailored for you at a price point you can afford,” Westergren said in a statement.

Story of the Week

ASCAP Pays $1.75 Million To Settle DoJ Investigation
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday that the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) has agreed to pay $1.75 million to settle allegations that they had engaged in anti-competitive practices in violation of a court order. According to DoJ, ASCAP signed contracts with approximately 150 songwriters and publisher members that made ASCAP the exclusive licensor of their performance rights, despite provisions in a court order prohibiting ASCAP from interfering with its members’ ability to directly license their songs.

As part of the settlement, ASCAP has also promised not to enter into further exclusive contracts and agreed to reform its licensing practices to remove music publishers from overseeing ASCAP’s licensing.

“Settling this matter was the right thing to do for our members,” said ASCAP CEO Elizabeth Matthews in a statement announcing the settlement. “With these issues resolved, we continue our focus on leading the way towards a more efficient, effective and transparent music licensing system and advocating for key reforms to the laws that govern music creator compensation.”

Top Music News Stories

SOCAN Predicts Dramatic YouTube Revenue Uplift As It Acquires Medianet. Canada-based collection society SOCAN has acquired B2B music tech provider Medianet in a bid to ‘ensure that creators and music publishers, including artists and all relevant rights owners, are properly compensated for their work.’

Medianet, SOCAN, YouTube And The Kobalt Effect. “SOCAN has seized the initiative with the Medianet acquisition, setting out its stall as a rights society that puts tech innovation, effective reporting and accountability at the centre of what it does for its members.” says Mark Mulligan, “It has also positioned itself as a contender for global successor of the GRD—consider this the first major repercussion of the innovation and transparency agenda that Kobalt set in motion.”

$300 Million – $600 Million US IPO Planned For China Based Streaming Music Service. China Music Corp, which is backed by Chinese Internet giant Tencent Holdings and operates Chinese digital music services Kugou and Kuwo, has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to prep a US IPO that could take place later this year, sources are telling the Wall Street Journal.

Beatport Suspends Auction and Shuts Down Streaming, News and Events Divisions. “Beatport has made a strategic decision to return to its roots, focusing its efforts on its flagship Beatport Store, the leading global source of electronic music for DJs and consumers,” SFX wrote in a statement provided to Billboard.

Irving Azoff Pens An Open Letter To YouTube: ‘The Root Of The Problem Here Is You.’ “You have built a business that works really well for you and for Google, but it doesn’t work well for artists. If you think it is just the labels and publishers who are complaining, you are wrong. The music community is traditionally a very fractured one, but on this we are united.”

Amazon Launches a New Rival for YouTube. Amazon Video Direct, which kicked off Tuesday, shares money with video creators through the method they choose: ads, subscriptions, rentals, or simply by the number of hours streamed to tens of millions of subscribers of Amazon Prime, its two-day shipping service.

Apple Music Set To Receive A Facelift. Although the service has certainly been picking up users, Apple Music has received some complaints about its less-than-stellar interface. It looks like this is about to change, however, with Apple set to give its streaming service a much needed facelift, in hopes of catching up with Spotify.

Story of the Week

Apple Music Grows to 13 Million Subscribers
Apple Music has surpassed 13 million subscribers, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed Tuesday. That represents growth of 2 million subscribers since the company last disclosed numbers in February.

Apple announced the growth in Apple Music subscribers as part of its fiscal second-quarter earnings release, during which it reported its first revenue declines since 2003.

But, the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant still has a ways to go before it catches up to streaming heavyweight Spotify. The company boasts 30 million paying subscribers as of March.

Top Music News Stories

Spotify Denies Security Breach After Report of Stolen Passwords, Addresses. According to a report at TechCrunch, some users’ email addresses, passwords and other account information appeared on the Pastebin website.

Pandora’s First Quarter Financials: Ad Revenue Jumps Along With Music Costs. With revenue jumping 29 percent from nearly $231 million in the corresponding quarter in the prior year, Pandora continues its growth story—but its losses also widened, to $115.7 million from the $48.3 million loss it had in the corresponding quarter in the prior year.

YouTube Changes Content ID to Allow Money Collection During Rights Investigations. Internet video giant YouTube has made a change in its Content ID evaluation process that will benefit creators whose work has been improperly challenged by a rights holder.

Regulatory Filing Reveals UMG’s Massive Effort To Block Pirates. A Universal Music Group filing with the U.S. Copyright office designed to bolster the case that Safe Harbor standards need an overhaul, reveals the lengths that the company went to limit piracy on Taylor Swift’s 2014 release ‘1989.’

Story of the Week

The Dept. of Justice Said to Be Considering a Baffling New Rule Change for Song LicensingRead More: http://bit.ly/1DlaKQK
According to numerous sources, the DoJ has sent a letter to two performance rights societies (ASCAP & BMI) governed by the consent decree, telling them that on “split works” songs — songs written by multiple writers — any writer or rights holder can issue a license for 100 percent of the song. In other words, the long-established industry practice of each rights owner greenlighting their particular portion of a song in order to establish a license — also known as fractional licensing — may no longer be allowed.

Currently, if a song has multiple writers, each writer must give permission for a song to be licensed for a cover, streaming service, or sync with film. These new laws, if verified and eventually passed, “would turn music publishing into the Wild West.” “If the DoJ follows through on this position, it could upend every agreement between co-writers and producers,” says one publishing executive.

Other Important Headlines

RIAA and Other Groups Revisit Case Against Cnet Over Downloads in New Letter – A 16-member coalition sent a letter stating that the CBS-owned property “has made various computer, web, and mobile applications available that induce users to infringe copyrighted content by ripping the audio or the audio and video from what might be an otherwise legitimate stream.” Read More

SFX Gives Sillerman Two Weeks to Secure Financing For Takeover Bid – After finding no other bidders, the SFX board says Sillerman has two weeks to provide proof of secured financing for his proposed (and overdue) takeover of the EDM promoter. Read More

Apple Music Racked Up 10 Million Subscribers in Less Than a Month… Three weeks after Apple Music’s launch, Apple CEO Tim Cook said “millions and millions of customers” had already signed up for the new streaming service. Read More

…But Apple Music Streams Just 4% Of Spotify, Says Indie Distributor – Independent music digital distributor DashGo, monitoring activity for its artists, says that, so far, streams from Apple Music are only 4% of what they see from Spotify. Read More

Soundcloud Subscription Tier Is Coming – While the exact details haven’t been revealed yet, it’s believed that the service will offer a free tier with a capped number of streams and downloads per month, and a paid tier where both are unlimited. Read More

No Happy Birthday Decision After New “Smoking Gun” Evidence Submitted – The judge overseeing the ‘Happy Birthday’ copyright dispute has pushed back any decision making for at least another week. Read More

Performing rights organizations, or PROs, are societies responsible for collecting income on behalf of songwriters and music publishers when a song is publicly broadcast. This includes live covers, radio plays, television plays, internet radio services like Pandora, streaming services like Spotify, restaurants or bars, nightclubs, and any other public performance. All these users pay the associated PRO a fee, which the PROs then pay to their registered songwriters.

Given the different processes in digital music, PROs have different distribution schedules. Many times payments will be remitted as much as two quarters following the performance. We’ve taken the liberty of combining all 3 U.S. PRO payment schedules here:

ASCAP

ASCAP, an organization owned and run by its members, is the leading U.S. Performing Rights Organization representing over 540,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers.

BMI

BMI is the bridge between songwriters and the businesses and organizations that want to play their music publicly. As a global leader in music rights management, BMI serves as an advocate for the value of music, representing more than 8.5 million musical works created and owned by more than 650,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers.